Temperatures Over Time - Part II

Updated 1/19/2017
All Vostok charts updated to include data through 2016 Also note RSS Data (last chart) showing CAGW theory-falsification

In the words of Princeton physicist Dr. Will Happer:

“The earth's climate is changing now, as it always has. There is no evidence that the changes differ in any qualitative way from those of the past.”

Climate alarmists use all sorts of deceptions and hyperboles in describing the surface temperatures observed since 1998.

But, even some self-described Liberals in the media are beginning to understand how laughably unreliable the “official” surface temperature measurements are. Thomas Fuller notes (I inserted the link):

“Anthony Watts of Watt's Up With That has surveyed 80% of the USHCN surface temperature measurement sites and found that only 11% of them meet siting specifications.”

Click here for a lengthy series of detailed posts on this topic from Anthony Watts.

Click here for additional directly cited peer reviewed science documenting problems with surface temperature measurements.

Here, I use solid peer reviewed science combined with current rigorous ongoing observational data at a single reliable surface location to debunk the alarmist view of temperatures observed since 1998.

I personally created each of the following charts - data sources are listed below the last chart.

Current temperatures can only be put into proper perspective by looking back at least 140,000 years ago to the previous perfectly natural interglacial warming period (known as the Eemian). Vostok, Antarctica is one of the few places in the world where we have extremely accurate temperature data dating back 423,000 years as well as ongoing records of monthly mean temperatures. That makes Vostok the perfect place to put current temperatures into proper perspective.

52 Years of Temperature Data at Vostok
Click the image to enlarge it:

10 Thousand Years of Temperature Data at Vostok
Click the image to enlarge it:


140 Thousand Years of Temperature Data at Vostok
Click the image to enlarge it:


423 Thousand Years of Temperature Data at Vostok
Click the image to enlarge it:

  The above chart demonstrates that the temperatures witnessed in the last decade do not even come close to the (very consistent) maximum temperatures witnessed in EACH of the previous FOUR perfectly normal, perfectly natural interglacial warming periods.

2 Thousand Year Warming Trend at Vostok
There is NOTHING unusual about the latest warming!
Click the image to enlarge it:

Note -- in the above chart -- the height of the various peaks above the black linear trend line. There have been at least five periods -- just in the last 2,000 years -- when a warming trend was further above the linear trend line than what is demonstrated in the warming of the 20th century.

Data Sources:

52 years of recent temperatures at Vostok:
British Antarctic Survey - National Environmental Research Council

Vostok Ice Core Data to 423,000 years ago:
This file downloaded from this page (Click on "deutnat.txt").

To verify that the reference point for the Vostok Ice Core study is -55.5C, click here, then click on “click to view more”.

Discussion:

Recall that, within the larger context of an ongoing multi-million year Ice Age, we are currently experiencing one of about 100 perfectly natural, perfectly normal interglacial warming periods known to have occurred “in the last 2.5 million years”.


Click this image for a global perspective:

Note: In the above chart, we see that -- despite a strong (and perfectly natural) el Nino in the Pacific causing a *temporary* upward spike on the chart (much like 97/98) -- WoodForTrees.org documents that the most recent RSS satellite data now demonstrate a theory-falsifying 18 years, 8 months of global cooling (from 6/1997 through 1/2016):

http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997.41/to:2016.07/plot/rss/from:1997.41/to:2016.07/trend

In the previous link, the slope of the ordinary least squares linear trend line is -0.000112492 per year (see the bottom of the following link to the raw data):

http://woodfortrees.org/data/rss/from:1997.41/to:2016.07/plot/rss/from:1997.41/to:2016.07/trend

By NOAA's own standards, ANY 15 year period without warming invalidates (with a 95% degree of certainty) ALL of the IPCC computer models (the sole foundation for all of the rest of the global warming hysteria mongering):

"The [computer model] simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends [in global temperatures] for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate."

http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/2008/chapter2.pdf

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Atmospheric CO2 Over Time

Updated 8/19/09

Quoting award winning Princeton University physicist Dr. Will Happer:

“Many people don’t realize that over geological time, we’re really in a CO2 famine now.”

Atmospheric CO2 Over Time
Click the chart to enlarge it:

I created the above chart.
Data Sources:

Current CO2 level (387 ppm at the time the chart was created):
This NOAA page.

CO2 by 2100 - IPCC Absolute Worst Case Scenario (790 ppm):
IPCC 2007 Synthesis Report, Page 67, Table 5.1.

Historic CO2 levels:
R.A. Berner, 2001 (GEOCARB III), as published in the American Journal of Science, Vol. 301, February 2001, P.182-204.

The raw data from the above peer reviewed science was taken from this file downloaded from this NOAA page.

I followed the instructions contained in Geocarb III for translating RCO2 into ppm.


Atmospheric CO2 Over Time
Combined With Temperature Over Time
Click the chart to learn more:

Data Sources:

Historic CO2 levels:
The same source as the previous chart.
Note: The above chart somehow calculated lower CO2 ppm levels than I did. But, I followed the instructions contained in Geocarb III to the letter.

Historic Temperatures:
The Paleomap Project by Dr. C.R. Scotese, a PhD geologist at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Now, look back 460 million years ago and explode the MYTH that we are on the precipice of some mythical “tipping point” of unstoppable and catastrophic global warming. The FACT is that the Ordovician Ice Age climate was very similar to THE CURRENT ICE AGE!

One reason we never reach this mythical “tipping point” is because every additional molecule of CO2 has exponentially LESS warming effect than the one which preceded it. Even the alarmists acknowledge this. CO2 absorbs energy at specific and relatively narrow wavelengths. Once all the energy at those wavelengths is absorbed, additional CO2 has NO IMPACT! This is best illustrated by three different approximations of the total warming impact of CO2 from 0ppm to 600ppm (roughly double pre-industrial levels and roughly 1.6 times current levels). The previous two links, are from this page. For more on that, see this discussion of Climate Sensitivity.

As this post demonstrates, it is reasonable to assume that the industrial revolution has increased atmospheric CO2 by about 86ppm. In order to reach the roughly 5,000ppm present during the Ordovician Ice Age, we would have to replicate the entire industrial revolution 54 times over! (5,000-386)/86=54. Obviously, that is not going to happen.

Many fret about the impact of CO2 on “biodiversity”. Well, 530 million years ago, when CO2 was about 22 times higher than today, the world experienced the single largest explosion in biodiversity this planet has EVER seen! That explosion is known as The Cambrian Explosion. Click here and here and here for substantiations.

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The Widget Page

Sea Levels Over Time

Updated 11/25/12

First, quoting Dr. Dorthe Dahl-Jensen:
(I inserted the link):

“during the Eemian period [the previous interglacial warming period]… the global sea level was 4-5 m higher than at present”

IF sea levels were to rise another 4-5 meters (13-16 feet), that would ONLY be consistent with the perfectly natural, perfectly normal, cyclical events of the past. However, primarily because the current interglacial is not likely to meet, much less exceed, the temperatures of the previous interglacial, it is extremely unlikely that will happen.

In fact, I am quite confident that even the predictions from the IPCC of a 7” to 23” inch increase in sea level by 2100 are excessively high. See Table 3.1 on page 45 of this IPCC link. One of many reasons why I am confident of this is the fact that the IPCC computer models upon which those predictions are predicated have -- by NOAA’s own standards -- been officially invalidated. The empirical evidence suggests the planet will not be warming anywhere near as rapidly as the IPCC expected it to.

Peer reviewed science from May of 2011 noted that:

"Without sea-level acceleration, the 20th-century sea-level trend of 1.7 mm/y would produce a rise of only approximately 0.15 m [6 inches] from 2010 to 2100"

That study found (globally) "small sea-level decelerations" (suggesting that 6 inches may overestimate the likely increase in sea level.)

More science -- published in February of 2012 -- reaffirms that finding and lists various other studies reaching similar conclusions. Click here for the summary. Click here for the peer reviewed paper.

Furthermore, the individual who may be the world’s foremost authority on sea levels tells us that the industrial age has had NO IMPACT on global sea level.

In any case, to think that we are capable of micromanaging sea level changes is the height of arrogant, ignorant folly. Read on.

Sea Levels Since the Last Glacial Maximum
Click the chart to enlarge it & learn more:
Pay special attention to “Meltwater Pulse 1A”.


GISS - The Alarmist View of 4 Meltwater Pulses
Click the chart to learn more:
The lesson is that rapid changes in sea level neither require nor imply human perturbation! We should expect sea levels to rise (or fall) and we should be prepared to cope with it. We should NOT expect to be capable of preventing it! Sea Levels have risen 120 meters (394 feet) just since the last Glacial Maximum. We cannot control this!


Sea Levels Over the Last 8 Thousand Years
Click the chart to learn more:


Recent Sea Level Rise
Click the chart to learn more:

No matter what we do, sea levels will probably continue to rise (slightly) over the next 100 years. We will not have caused it and we cannot prevent it. It is extremely unlikely that we will see anything like the past Meltwater Pulses.

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Temperatures Over Time - Part I

Updated 2/23/09

Quoting this source:

"During most of the last 1 billion years the earth had no permanent ice [as it cycled (NATURALLY) in and out of multi-million year Ice Ages]"

The only reason there is any year round ice anywhere on this planet is because we are currently in one of the three coldest Ice Ages in the last 600 million years:

Click the image to learn more:

NOTE: Unfortunately, the term “Ice Age” is often used (incorrectly, even by scientists) to refer to a glacial period. Ice Ages last millions of years. Glacial periods last tens of thousands of years. Glacial periods only occur during Ice Ages.

The current Ice Age cycle began 30 million years ago.

Some 4 to 5 million years ago, the world cooled enough for cyclical glacial advances and retreats to begin (again).

The last glacial maximum occurred about 18,000 to 20,000 years ago. In general, the glaciers have been melting ever since then!

Within the larger context of an ongoing multi-million year Ice Age, we are currently experiencing one of about 100 perfectly natural, perfectly normal interglacial warming periods known to have occurred “in the last 2.5 million years”.

Sources for the above chart:

Temperature - The Paleomap Project by Dr. C.R. Scotese, a PhD geologist at the University of Texas at Arlington.

CO2 - R.A. Berner, 2001 (GEOCARB III), as published in the American Journal of Science, Vol. 301, February 2001, P.182-204.

The Geocarb III data are found in this file downloaded from this NOAA page.

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